Equine Supplements and Nutritional Requirements (AAEP 2011)

If a horse eats an adequate diet there might be no need for supplementation without a specific deficiency.
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Nutritional supplement use is widespread in the horse industry, with owners adding scoops of products to feed without necessarily understanding how these nutrients fit into a normal equine diet. A veterinarian and an equine nutritionist examined how five general equine dietary supplements stacked up in light of a horse’s daily nutrient requirements. David Ramey, DVM, presented the findings at the 2011 American Association of Equine Practitioners convention, held Nov. 18-22 in San Antonio.

Ramey started off his presentation remarking that supplement sales are often driven by direct-to-consumer advertising, with consumers being "educated" that nutritional supplements are necessary. He recognized that horse owners might ask their veterinarians for advice on the best supplements to feed horses, so he emphasized the importance of knowing what’s in supplements and how they might be used. He and Stephen Duren, PhD, an equine nutritionist with Performance Horse Nutrition in Weiser, Idaho, evaluated the following commonly used products in the context of the diet of a 500 kg horse in light work: Platinum Performance, Dynamite, Grand Meadows Grandvite, Farnam Vita-Plus, and Vita-Flex Accel.

To determine nutritional requirements for such a horse, Ramey and Duren used the National Research Council’s (NRC) Nutrient Requirements of Horses (6th Revised Edition, 2007). For the purposes of this evaluation, he assumed that the product label amounts were accurate. However, he did point out that actual levels of a product might vary from label content, in part due to lack of regulatory oversight.

Based on the NRC guidelines, Ramey determined that most equine diets (approximately 7 kilograms of alfalfa plus one pound of oats or 9 kilograms of grass hay plus one pound of oats) more than adequately satisfy the nutritional needs of the 500-kg horse in light work. Substances that might be lacking are salt (sodium chloride) and possibly selenium in certain geographic areas, he noted

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Written by:

Nancy S. Loving, DVM, owns Loving Equine Clinic in Boulder, Colorado, and has a special interest in managing the care of sport horses. Her book, All Horse Systems Go, is a comprehensive veterinary care and conditioning resource in full color that covers all facets of horse care. She has also authored the books Go the Distance as a resource for endurance horse owners, Conformation and Performance, and First Aid for Horse and Rider in addition to many veterinary articles for both horse owner and professional audiences.

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